College of San Mateo garden paving blocked

SAN MATEO

Published 4:00 am, Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle

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Student, Shawn Kann walks through one area of the gardens, on Friday June 17, 2011. Kann, a member of the Friends of the College of San Mateo Gardens - the students and faculty who oppose a plan by the college to turn a lush garden on campus and put up a parking lot - got a lawyer and sued to stop the project. They claim it violates California's Enviornmental Quality Act. less

Student, Shawn Kann walks through one area of the gardens, on Friday June 17, 2011. Kann, a member of the Friends of the College of San Mateo Gardens - the students and faculty who oppose a plan by the college ... more

Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle

College of San Mateo garden paving blocked

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A half-century-old garden at the College of San Mateo, where an ancient Bunya-Bunya tree resides alongside a rare Fragrant Pitcher Sage, will get a reprieve from the parking lot pavers because trustees didn't do a proper environmental review, a judge ruled Tuesday.

San Mateo Community College District trustees failed to adequately study the environmental impact of demolishing the garden and a 6,000-square-foot structure of the same vintage that once housed horticulture classes, according to Judge Clifford Cretan of San Mateo County Superior Court.

The ruling was a victory for Friends of the College of San Mateo Gardens, which sued the trustees in June to stop them from turning 13,500 square feet of tangled greenery into a garden of fresh asphalt. The trustees saw it as a prime location for a couple hundred parking spots.

"I'm ecstatic!" said Shawn Kann, a physics student who helped form the garden group last year. "It's a great day for the campus and the community at large. We have to be aware of these (environmental) laws before we decide to demolish and get rid of gardens."

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Kann and other fans of the garden call it the last peaceful oasis on a campus that has become highly manicured. Planted in 1963, the campus garden hosts more than 300 plant specimens and attracts wildlife from bees to herons, they said.

The garden group sued on grounds that the proposed demolition did not merely modify a project approved in 2006, but was an entirely new project that required a full environmental impact report.

Plans for the garden and former classroom, known as Building 20, were part of a larger construction project on campus, said Barbara Christensen, spokeswoman for the college district.

She said the district's review, which the judge called inadequate, was 150 pages long.

"It wasn't a light little study," Christensen said. "We have to decide whether to appeal this decision or go back and do a (full) environmental impact study."

If the trustees do perform a full environmental study, they could still decide to demolish the garden.

"It could be exactly the same result," she said. "And they could pile a lawsuit on that, too."